


Remarkable

by everyshootingstar



Series: The Sole Survivor [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Stream of Consciousness, eventual mshep/kaidan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:49:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4027462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyshootingstar/pseuds/everyshootingstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Everyone's gone, Shepard's the only one left.</i>
</p>
<p>It's 2177 when Shepard first hears it, he's barely awake, lying uncomfortably in a medical bay on some ship he can't remember the name of.</p>
<p>The doctor's whispering with the CO but Shepard can hear them, he's injured, not dead or deaf. <i>It's an amazing feat that Shepard's even here right now. Remarkable, I tell you.</i></p>
<p>Funny, Shepard doesn't feel remarkable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remarkable

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Mass Effect fandom, I hope I don't make a fool of myself but well--you see, I have all these feelings I need to get out as I play the game...so essentially this will be little drabbles as I go along with my play through of the games again. I'm very nervous because I'm pretty bad at stringing words together into formidable thoughts but hey, I thought, why not, right? 
> 
> This drabble is pretty much time stamped and the reason for it is, I've always been a little irked I guess, that every time someone sees Shepard they mention that he's the 'survivor of Akuze' and I'm like wow okay, way to demean Shepard's worth down to a tragedy that he had no control over. 
> 
> Now uh, eventually it'll be mShep/Kaidan and because I'm playing on console I can't mod the game to get the romance in the first games so it'll essentially be me taking liberties with their relationship ahahahaha. 
> 
> So yeah, tell me what you think? <3 
> 
> [I have a tumblr if you wanna come talk about Shepard headcanons or something](http://lifeofstiles.tumblr.com) or even just about Mass Effect in general. 
> 
> <3

_Everyone's gone, Shepard's the only one left._  

  
It's 2177 when Shepard first hears it, he's barely awake, lying uncomfortably in a medical bay on some ship he can't remember the name of.

   
The doctor's whispering with the CO but Shepard can hear them, he's injured, not dead or deaf. _It's an amazing feat that Shepard's even here right now. Remarkable, I tell you.  
_  

Funny, Shepard doesn't feel remarkable.

   
–  
 

It's 2183 and so far, Shepard hasn't gone a day since that day in 2177 without hearing the words _sole survivor_ and _attack on Akuze_ in the same sentence.  


_I'm no hero, it's nothing **remarkable,** it's a damn tragedy, I shouldn't be here, I don't deserve to be here I should have **died**_.  


Jenkins mentions it and Shepard _almost_ snaps at him, almost, but he doesn't. He just bites his tongue and changes the subject. Jenkins doesn't notice, thank god.  
  


And then Eden Prime happens and Jenkins dies and Shepard feels a Jenkins sized weight settle on top of the other members of his lost squad from Akuze, it all settles on his shoulders as if this mission wasn't already wearing on him, weighing him down. _Protheans? Prothean Beacons?  
_

There's geth and there's another soldier who lost her squad and Shepard offers her a place on his ship, knows the feeling of losing your entire squad, knows what its like to be the last one standing.

Luckily she made it out better than he did but it's not a comfort.

There's nightmares but Shepard never mentions them, never talks about them. They're full of fire and acid and the screams of his fellow marines dying.

_You knew the score going in, they knew the score going in, they wouldn't want you to mourn them like this_ Anderson had once told him and Shepard wanted to find the nearest airlock to throw himself out of.

He's been through the stages of grief, he's mourned them, he went to all their funerals, the empty caskets being lowered down into graves, families crying softly as he stood at attention off to the side, watching with an impassive face.

   
This isn't mourning, it's him coming to terms with the mistake he made, it's him being fed up with the pity.

   
_That's Commander Shepard and his whole squad died on Akuze._

There's Saren and husks and geth and Shepard's glad for the distraction, he's glad that no one's mentioned Akuze again until they find the beacon and the second he steps away to call for extraction, Alenko's stepping towards the beacon in a trance and Shepard has a brief thought of Akuze against his will, and not being aware, a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach as he runs towards the beacon, towards Alenko and knocks him out of the way.

   
And then nothing else.

  
– 

_Welcome back, Commander_.

  
Shepard wakes, in a medical bay in 2183, his head hurts a little and there were dreams, visions.

   
Alenko looks worried as Shepard tells them about his vision, his dream, his whatever.

  
For now, Akuze is forgotten. 

_It's_ blissfully not mentioned again until they're on the Citadel to request an audience with the Council. 

Down in the Wards, trying to find evidence to frame Saren leads them to a krogan named Wrex, leads them to a man named Fist, leads them to a reporter named Emily Wong.

_According to your file, you survived back on Akuze when everyone else in your squad got killed._  
  
  
There it was again, there was the only thing Shepard's remembered by. _You survived on Akuze._ _ **You Survived**_ _ **O**_ _ **n Akuze**_ _._  

  
Shepard bites his tongue again, bites it hard enough to draw blood, to make him flinch a bit.

  
Wong doesn't notice but Wrex does, and Shepard doesn't know what Wrex has heard, doesn't know if krogans judge by how many people in their squads get killed by thresher maws or if they judge the one who's still alive after it all goes down.

Alenko steps closer to him, their shoulders almost touching now, he shoots Shepard a look, its exasperated almost and it makes Shepard shift on his feet so he bumps his shoulder against Alenko's. They don't know each other well but there's _something_ between them. A mutual understanding.

Wrex steps closer too, as if sensing his discomfort, or maybe he just likes to mess with humans, because Shepard suddenly doesn't feel like he wants to put a bullet through the nearest geth, because Wong steps back, falters a bit before pressing on with her proposal, words shaky and unsure.  
  


Out of kindness, Shepard accepts.  
  


Wrex grumbles about being sidetracked.

When they're back on the Normandy, three new crew members aboard and heading out to the Artemis Tau Cluster to pick of their fourth, Shepard gets a moment to himself.  
 

He's a Spectre now, the first human Spectre and somehow, it doesn't feel like much of an honor.  
 

_A lot of good people died_.

   
Nihlus had mentioned Akuze as a reason to make him Spectre, his survival was _remarkable_. _Surviving when all odds are against you is a good quality to have._

   
Shepard just wishes that people would stop talking about it, that they would _forget_ about it, stop calling it _remarkable._  
 

It's not.

   
Shepard almost doesn't make it to the latrine in enough time before the thought becomes too much.

 


End file.
